User talk:Rath101
Hi, welcome to the Dragon Age Wiki! Thanks for your edit to the Epilogue (Awakening) page. I hope that you will stick around and continue to help us improve the wiki. Please leave a message on my talk page if I can help with anything! -- Loleil (Talk) 12:51, 2010 March 19 THE QUESTION ABOUT HAWKE This is an attempt to summarize everything about Hawke and his story, in an attempt to explain why s/he is an unappealing hero to me, and why many people, I think, are disappointed with him/her and the game in general. Much of the text (nearly all of it in fact) was lifted and subsequently edited from opinions and entries I put forth in the forums. Let’s review Hawke’s story: He/she tries to run from the Blight and escapes with his/her family, but loses a sibling along the way. (Fine, we'll chalk that up to past tragedies that make the hero grow stronger) He/she gets into a Deep Road expedition, only to lose ANOTHER sibling (whether to death, the Wardens, or the Circle). He/she becomes an unwitting accomplice to the resurrection of a (possibly) evil witch. He/she is asked to help ease tensions between the Qunari and Kirkwall, and no matter what your actions are, the Qunari go on a rampage, managing to kill the Viscount in the process. He/she learns of a killer on the loose with a well-established M.O., but when the same killer goes after his/her mother, he/she is unable to do anything about it, and Hawke loses Leandra as well. (I'm detecting a pattern here). He/she invests in a mine only to have it run over by gigantic arachnids, killing several workers. Hawke takes ownership of said mine, promising them safety, and in the end, a High Dragon comes and slaughters the lot of them. (Good work, Hawke). He/she lives in a city for ten years during which time he/she becomes a wealthy and prominent member of the community, called the Champion of Kirkwall, and yet, despite all this power and influence, is unable to stop one idiotic mage (who may or may not be Hawke's friend/rival) from committing mass murder, despite all the signs that tensions between mages and templars were coming to a violent end, thus becoming unable to stop a full-blown rebellion. About the only accomplishments of Hawke are to survive everything thrown against him/her (which is the stuff heroes are made of), but in the process lose everything else, such as his mother, his siblings, his mine and the workers who he/she took under his protection, and also be unable to stop the events that surround him (which is NOT what heroes are made of---and why people call him an observer). The Warden, on the other hand, suffers great personal loss at the beginning of the game, and in the process of becoming the Hero of Ferelden, saves the city of Redcliffe (twice) and its arl, kills a High Dragon, discovers the Urn of Sacred Ashes, unites Orzammar under one king, saves the Circle of Magi with the minimum loss of life, releases a race of werewolves from their lycanthropy, saves the city of Denerim, rediscovers and exorcises Warden's Keep, slays an Archdemon thereby preventing the spread of the Fifth Blight and thus saving Ferelden AND Thedas from it, then goes on to save Amaranthine from a new darkspawn threat. Mind you...he/she did that in less than ten years...and he/she did it without a single word coming from his/her mouth. Yes, the decisions above may not have been what other Wardens did, but that's the whole point. The Warden's actions made real differences. Maybe you didn't save the werewolves. Maybe you slaughtered the elves. Maybe you destroyed the Circle of Magi. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that we altered the course of history. Hawke was more a slave to it. Hawke is tough, mind you. Despite what may or may not be said, he/she is a survivor...but on most occasions s/he is simply that...a survivor. Not a hero. Maybe to those people who like Hawke it's the same thing. I just tend to think that heroes should be...well...more heroic. A character is only as good as the person writing him/her. The deadline really threw Bioware into a suicide run. They signed their own death sentence by committing to such an early release date. I could go into the details of how the game recycles maps, rushed and railroaded stories, the lack of an overhead view that makes it difficult to click individual enemies on the PC, etc, but these are covered elsewhere. I don't know what Bioware plans to do with DA3, but I have always maintained that great games are great for a reason. DA:O was great and it did it without a voice for the main character, without recycling maps over and over and over...and over again...without trying to please everyone by making every romancable character in game bisexual (I know I'll get some hate for that comment - live with it, as no way in any situation can you simply pick out ten people at random and end up with half of them open to relationships with both sexes), etc. etc. I never thought of DA2 as a bad game...but it is an inferior one when you compare it to DAO. But don’t get me wrong; I don't have any problem with a voiced character, that's not my issue. I wasn't disappointed with that, my point was that DA:O was great without having to RELY on a voiced character. In the end, the fact that they tried to give the character a voice however, meant that with the tight schedule they cornered themselves into, they were forced to abandon many features of DA:O that made it great. If the time they had spent voicing the character had gone into say, creating better maps and areas that weren't recycled, or making a better storyline that DIDN'T involve the PC failing over and over again, then the voice of Hawke is something that any true RPG fan would not have missed. Ultimately, did giving a voice to Hawke make him/her a better character? I don't think so. No matter how good a voice is, it's only as good as how the character is written, as has already been mentioned. And these points are why people are indifferent to/hate Hawke. And the variations that lead to the same outcome are what makes people so frustrated. The fact is, leading a player to the same outcome while giving you the illusion of control simply cheapens the decisions you make. That's what makes DA2 inferior to DA:O. You make a decision in DAO, it changes the fate of all around you. You make a decision in DA2, it doesn't make a world of difference. There's no substance to your decisions. That's what makes Hawke a bystander protagonist. Some people might not mind such a PC, but it doesn't change the fact that between the Warden and Hawke, the Warden seems to get things done far better, and is, without a shadow of a doubt, an epic hero to whom Hawke cannot possibly compete against. A PC with a voice versus a PC without a voice, there is no question which is better, given that the voice actor does a good job. At the very least, we can say the voice acting for both Hawkes is passable at worst, and impressive at best. That's subject to one's opinion. But most RPG fans will agree with me, I think, when we say that we would rather have a SILENT HERO, than a VOCAL BYSTANDER. If Bioware had managed to make a VOCAL HERO, then that would have been great...but they didn't. That's my point. Hawke can still be saved as a character, IMO, if they improve the writing, and if they intend to continue his or her story. After all, with at least one of his/her siblings dead and with his/her mother gone, s/he only has potentially one more sibling to fail to save. Ah, then it's sad to think that a dev team doesn't even know how good a game they have created is, and even more disappointing to think that they needed to change DA2’s formula by trying to emulate another game (Mass Effect), even if it was their own, especially considering that DA:O was great on its own merits. The backlash wouldn't have been nearly as bad had they started with a DA2-esque formula in DA:O. But it's like trying to change the formula or taste of Coke because the original creator doesn't think it tastes like he envisioned it. Point is, millions of people love the formula, try to change it, and the people that fell in love with it in the first place are gonna lose it. It doesn't necessarily mean that it tastes bad, and maybe at the end of the day, it just tastes different, but it's no longer Coke. (I believe they actually DID try to change the formula once, and got so many complaints they reverted back to the original). Still, I can't chalk it up all to a formula change. While it is certainly in no small part due to that, I believe the story in and of itself is badly written. Even if the dev team had theoretically stuck with the DAO game mechanic (customization-wise, etc), the story itself is a major factor why people don't like Hawke. Conceptually, it sounds good when summarized, as how a person who loses his home succeeds in becoming this champion, but the story elements in and of themselves are also poorly done, unfortunately, as per my points above. Instead of a hero, we get a bystander. Instead of feeling we overcome adversity, we simply seem to survive it, and no matter how we rise to each occasion, we seem to lose something even more important along the way. Perhaps in a nutshell, the best way to describe how great any role-playing game is to see just how successful the hero is, and we can easily see that by comparing the two stories of DAO and DA2. Forgetting epicness and game mechanics for a second, we can easily summarize the stories of the Warden and Hawke. The Warden starts out with one goal- Stop the Blight, Kill the Archdemon. Mission accomplished. Hawke starts out wanting to keep his family together, and save them. EPIC FAIL. S/he doesn't have a unified goal throughout the story. The Warden's tale is akin to an epic fantasy novel. Hawke's is more like a series of short stories, and though each one is more 'grand' than the one that came before, equally grand are the failures of Hawke's life. And while a fantasy novel can be great with such a formula, one that emulates real life in a more 'realistic fashion', it doesn't make a good game, because such a story doesn't make good heroes. And RPG's are exactly that. They're supposed to make you feel heroic. You're supposed to feel like you’re changing the world, not feel like you're helpless to everything that goes around you. In an alien invasion, you're supposed to be the guy that sends them packing, not the guy who survives by fleeing the city and losing your family on the way. After all, wouldn't we rather be like Will Smith's character in Independence Day rather than Tom Cruise's character in World at War, in terms of a game? Certainly, what the protagonists accomplished in both movies are no easy feats, but the two stories are very different. Will Smith's character in ID was a hero in every sense of the word. Impossible odds. Nearly zero chance of success. Manages to blow up the alien central and save the world in the process. Tom Cruise's character is no hero. He didn't kill any aliens. He was just a guy who managed to survive the thing with his daughter, but unfortunately lost his son (debatable). But he survived. No doubt, when the world was invaded he was at the center of these events (much like Hawke), but he was nowhere near as instrumental, and while it makes a good movie, it wouldn't make a good game. A good story doesn't necessarily make a good game, and a good character doesn't necessarily make a good hero. So remember what DA2 IS: IT'S AN RPG. Not a book, not a movie, it's a game. And not just any game, it’s an RPG. Hawke is likable enough, and his story is filled with tragedy and you have to admire the fact that he gets through a whole sh*tstorm and still manages to become a Champion of Kirkwall, but he isn't heroic in the game sense of the word. Even your comment that his failures outweigh his accomplishments...I agree 100% that such a character in a book or novel can still make a great character. Someone who survives beyond all odds. But a hero in a book can be a hero without being 'HEROIC'. And unfortunately, that's what makes a great RPG---Heroism. I mean, think about a book say like Of Mice and Men or Catcher in the Rye. The heroes are flawed, they go through tragedies and there are few successes in their lives...but they are great stories. But if someone were to make a game like either one of these books, I can say with great confidence that they won't be received well. DA2 could have made a good book. The story of a refugee who becomes a champion, loses his/her family and is a witness to the events that change all of Thedas. But that's all s/he is. A witness, nothing more. Compare that to the Warden, who loses his/her home due to events that are largely no fault of his/hers, but rises to become a Hero of Ferelden without whom the Blight would have consumed that nation and would have overrun all Thedas. A hero in a book need not be heroic. He could be severely flawed. He could be psychologically disturbed. And yet the story could still be amazing. Not so in an RPG of this caliber. A hero SHOULD be heroic. Chalk it up to poor execution, poor writing, or rushed design, the fact remains that Hawke is a slave to the world around him, rather than a hero that changes it. I will concede that a hero can still fail at some things and lose things that are important along the way. But it shouldn't be a pattern for ten years of the entire story that every time s/he succeeds at something a family member of his/hers dies. It shouldn't be a pattern for a hero that whatever he invests time and gold in is destroyed by a High Dragon (fine that happened only once). It might make a good book, as I said, but a great game? Questionable at best. Tragedy in any story is supposed to have purpose. No (great) author puts tragedy or failure in any story without purpose. These reasons are myriad in a number of ways, but in an RPG, tragedy serves only two or three reasons. These range from allowing you to feel for a hero and the great loss he/she has gone through, it sets him/her up to become a character that goes through adversity and rises above it, and in some cases, it is used as a medium through which you can develop an insane desire to kill the bad guy (Aeris' death, anyone?). In some cases, in exceptionally written stories, it makes you question the hero's beliefs, and by extension, your beliefs, by allowing you some insight into why things are the way they are (which I believe Dragon Age 2 tried to do). You may be a Hawke with an apostate sister who wants to keep her from the claws of the Templars, and who believes mages should be free...until you see what one psychotic mage does to your mother. But tragedy/failure in Hawke's case seems to be thrown at him/her for the sake of tragedy being thrown at him/her. There are already numerous side quests and three companions whose own stories are mirrors of what is happening in Kirkwall. Half your sidequests involve templars or abominations or apostates, and each one is already designed to make you question your stance. Merrill, Anders and Fenris are already close characters that are representative of the world already. Fenris is a product of a power-mad mage, Merrill is a naive girl who falls subject to blood magic and as a result loses the one person in her clan who is still willing to stick up for her, and Anders...well, I don't want to even discuss the issues of that idiot. So what's the point of Leandra's death? What's the point of your sibling's death in the Deep Roads (if your sibling dies)? To put Hawke through MORE pain and suffering? And for what? It's like taking the Cousland storyline of the Warden, and killing Fergus at Ostagar. Or allowing him to discover that his father or mother is alive and then killing them anyway. It serves no purpose. Take a look at the Bone Pit. You invest heavily in a mine, promise to protect its workers and a High Dragon shows up and slaughters everyone. What's the purpose? The purpose was so you could fight the High Dragon. Lame. Could have easily been done without making Hawke look like a total fool and on a personal note, it gave me the unnecessary feeling that my promise to protect these miners was broken. For what? Loot? And look how the final battle is set up. It cheapens the tragedies and failures of Hawke's life. You side with mages despite the fact that your mother was killed by an apostate, you stick to your ideals that mages should be free and not all should be labeled as blood mages and evil and simply killed, then Orsino shows up and the one mage you believe is sane begins using blood magic himself. You side yourself with the templars because you've seen what horrible things they can do and believe that mages should be controlled, then Meredith proves herself to be the psycho-b*tch everyone believes her to be and you have to take her down anyway. It makes your opinions and the decisions you make unimportant. The end result is the same. Hawke isn't a lame character, in my opinion, but he is a poor hero. In the same line of thinking, DA2 isn’t an awful story, in my opinion, but it makes for an inferior RPG.